


The Best Day

by SapphyreLily



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Family, Family Dynamics, Gen, Shiratorizawa, Slight Transphobia, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily
Summary: Tsutomu really appreciates Semi - for everything she's done for him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic based on a Taylor Swift song hahaha. 
> 
> (It's also an excuse to write Shiratorizawa family dynamics)

The wind blows across the field, rustling the rice paddies, stinging his face. Tsutomu shivers, bringing his hands up to cover his cheeks, hiding them from the wind.

The cold is seeping through his coat, big and padded though it is, and he stomps his feet, trying to shake the sensation off.

“Tsutomu!”

His head whips back in the direction of the voice, but all he sees are paddy plants, tall and waving around him.

The voice laughs, and he smiles, tottering off in that direction.

“Mama!” A loud cry for one so small, little legs pounding the ground, tiny tremors rippling out as he crushes the grass underfoot.

Slim hands pick him up and twirl him around, and he shouts with glee. He is coming to a halt far too soon, brought down from his wide swinging arc and tucked against his mother’s body, nose to nose with her and staring into her cocoa eyes.

He giggles and presses a kiss to her nose.

Her eyes crinkle with mirth, then a kiss is pressed to his forehead and she is mounting the tractor that they are beside. “Come on, darling. Let’s go home.”

“Home!” He cheers, and snuggles closer, because the wind is still blowing and he is _cold._

He tilts his head to watch the fields as they rumble past, green and gold heads bent under the wind, the sky a rich marigold, slowly turning to citrus. The clouds are tinted white at the edges, glowing so bright that he can’t look at them directly. Above him, he can hear his mother humming a tune, and smiles.

He places his head in her lap and looks out at the sea of rice, watching the clouds race them back home.

He doesn’t see the sky turn to red and purple and finally blue, lulled to sleep by the steady rumbling of the tractor and his mother’s song.

x.x.x.x.x

“Tsutomu, do you want a sibling?”

He gapes, then sits up and claps his hands in glee.

“Yes, yes!” He cries, because a sibling means he’ll have someone else to play with. It gets boring, playing by himself all the time.

His mother smiles, and exchanges a look with his father. “Satori, go call that lady back and tell her we’ll be happy to have him.”

“Why don’t you call her, and I tell Tsutomu what it means to be a big brother?”

“Satori.” His mother gives him a Look, and Tsutomu _eeps_ unintentionally, because that’s Mama’s You’ve Done Something Bad Look.

His father sighs and slinks away. “Fine, fine. I can’t promise I won’t say something off though–”

His mother is on her feet immediately, running to the kitchen and snatching the phone from him. She takes one look at the screen and walks away, speaking into it cheerily.

His father snickers and comes to sit beside him, humming a tune from one of the anime they watch on TV. “Tsutomu.”

“Yes, Papa?” His eyes are large, nervous with anticipation and excitement of someone to play with.

“Y’know what being a good older brother means?”

“No?” He tilts his head comically, hair falling into his eyes.

His father chuckles. “It means you have to be nice and share your toys and protect him from bad people. Think you can do that?”

It seems like a lot of things, and Tsutomu frowns. Not a second later, he brightens up, throwing his arms in the air. “Yeah! I’ll be the bestest older brother around!”

“There’s no such word as ‘bestest’,” his mother comments, walking back into the room and coming to sit beside them. “The word is ‘best’.”

Tsutomu pouts. “But bestest sounds cooler!”

“He has a point, Semisemi.”

His mother shoots both of them a Look. “Don’t teach Tsutomu bad grammar.”

His father wilts. A second later, he grabs him and starts running. “Okay, let’s go learn some bad grammar before Mama catches us~”

“SATORI! Get back here!”

Tsutomu laughs, clapping his hands.

x.x.x.x.x

The front door slams, and Semi pokes her head out of the kitchen to see who it is. Before she can finish her _Welcome home_ , her oldest is brushing past her, tears in his eyes, his bedroom door slamming shut. She looks after him in worry, quickly rinsing the last dish and going after him.

He is lying face down, head buried in his pillow, screaming. She walks up to him and places a hand on his shoulder, and he immediately turns around, launching himself at her and sobbing into her chest.

She hugs him tight and lets him cry himself out, then wipes his face and tells him to grab his shoes.

They are in the car and driving within five minutes, with no destination in mind. Tsutomu sniffs and leans against the window, looking at the passing trees and fields mindlessly.

They don’t talk, the only sounds their breathing and the rumble of the car.

They are out of Miyagi and well into Iwate when Tsutomu finally speaks.

“The boys at school called you a weirdo.”

Semi’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, but her voice is light as she asks, “What did they say?”

“They said… They said…” He sniffs again, before bursting out, “They said you’re not a real mother because you’re not a woman!

“But they’re wrong!” He continues angrily, “Wrong! You’re the best mother ever, and it’s none of their business whether you’re a woman or not, because, because,” he chokes through his tears, “Because you’re _my_ mother, and _I_ say you’re a good mother, no matter what they might think!”

Semi’s hands relax, her shoulders slumping, though she did not realise they had been tensed up. She lets go of the steering wheel with one hand, reaching out to pat her son on the shoulder. “You’re a good boy, Tsutomu. Thank you for standing up for me.”

He sniffs again, grabbing a tissue from the box on the dashboard and blowing his nose noisily.

When he next speaks, his voice is quieter. “They also said you’re not my real mother because of our different surnames.”

“Oh?” Semi sighs internally; she knew this day would come. “And what do you think?”

“I think it doesn’t matter!” Tsutomu sits up straight, staring at her though he knows she can’t take her eyes off the road. “You raised me, so you must be my mother! But,” he sits back, pulling his feet up to his chest, “I _am_ adopted, right?”

There was no point in hiding the truth. “Yes,” she agrees, and her heart breaks a little when she sees him curl in further on himself. “But what does it matter?”

“We look different,” he mumbles.

Semi keeps on driving, letting the silence mature. After another half kilometre, she speaks.

“It’s true that we don’t look alike, but does that matter as long as we love each other as a family?”

She can see that Tsutomu is thinking about it, and says nothing more, letting him think for himself.

“No,” he finally admits. “But why did my first mother not want me?” He sounds broken, and her heart aches for him.

“It’s not that she didn’t want you,” she begins. “It’s that she couldn’t _keep_ you. She was so young, too young to raise a child on her own. She knew that, and she wanted the best home for you, so she gave you to us.”

Tsutomu chews on his lip, and says nothing.

Semi eyes him uneasily, soft words falling from her lips.

“I still have her number, if you want to talk to her.”

He whips his head round to stare at her, but her face is impassive, the only sign of her distress the lines around her mouth.

He stares for a long while, before slowly turning to face the front, resting his chin on his arms. “No, that’s okay.”

She exhales, only half-reassured. “Are you sure?”

He nods, then realises she can’t see him and says, “Yeah.”

They drive and drive, but the silence is comfortable, now.

“Mama?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you adopt me and Kenjirou?”

“Because I can’t give birth.”

“Why can’t you have children?”

Semi smiles bitterly at her reflection, eyes still seeing the sharp angles of her face, the too-strong line of her jaw. “I wasn’t born female.”

“What’s that mean?”

He is innocent, still a child, still not old enough to fully understand.

She tells him anyway.

“It means I don’t have the female reproductive organs to bear a child.” There it is again, the empty feeling in her stomach, the hollowness where she has longed to feel the weight of a child. “I was born male, and chose to become female.”

She can feel her son thinking, can almost hear it when the puzzle pieces click into place in his mind.

“Oh…”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.” He uncurls, leaning back against the window. “It doesn’t matter what they all think. You’re still a woman, still my mother.”

Semi almost can’t help the tender smile that turns her lips up.

“Mama?”

“Yes, Tsutomu?”

“I love you.”

“…I love you too.”

x.x.x.x.x

They finally stop in Akita, strolling through the malls, window shopping and making up stories and eating too much junk food and sweets.

The car ride home is peppered with laughter and jokes, and Tsutomu thinks that it is all worth it, even if he has no one to talk to at school tomorrow.

(He can always talk to Kenjirou, not that he’ll appreciate it.)

x.x.x.x.x

Tsutomu thinks he has the best family in the world.

His father is strong and loud and cheery, and never fails to make him feel better or encourage him after a bad day. He teaches him the coolest things, like how to block in volleyball, which are the best manga to read, which pranks are easiest to do and get away with.

He wants to be like his father one day, tall and strong and inspirational, with an easy laugh and the confidence to do anything.

His mother has her own quiet strength, walking away from the people who jeer at her on the streets, scolding those who dare to harass her more openly, shaming them for their actions. She stands up for those who are weaker, gives tough but solid advice, but above all, she has a heart of gold, never turning away someone in need.

He wants to have her core of steel, and her heart of compassion.

His brother is…an ass. For lack of better words.

He’s smart and analytical, and he rubs it into Tsutomu’s face too often. He’s not as physically strong, but he knows things, and fights his own battles. For every horrible remark they get against their family, Kenjirou will snub them twice as bad, but will never get into trouble for it. He has the face of an angel, and Tsutomu loves and hates him for it.

He wants… Okay, he does not really want to be like his brother.

But he’s a good brother.

And all together, they’re a good family.

x.x.x.x.x

Sometimes, Tsutomu remembers the video he found of himself when he was…three?

He had been sitting at the dining table, a piece of canvas pinned to the newspapers lining it, pots of paint around him, new and unopened and ready for him to make a mess with.

His mother had been filming that video, holding the paint out to him to dip his hands in and smear all over the canvas, painting the blankness with all shades.

He can hear her gushing every time he puts a new colour on, ooh-ing and ahh-ing like he’s creating a masterpiece. He knows for a fact that it looks _awful_ – the painting is framed and hanging in the hallway, a horrible mar on their otherwise beautiful wall. He has no idea why she keeps it there, except that she does.

(Kenjirou’s equally horrible painting is across from his, two pieces competing for the top prize of ‘Ugliest Kid Painting Ever’.)

(Their mother insists they look wonderful, and their father tells her that she has no taste.)

But in the video, he looked like he was having fun.

Every time he looks up and smiles at the camera, his mother sighs with happiness, and keeps on rambling about what he’s painting, wondering if he’s painting a character from one of the children’s stories or one of the horrible anime characters that his father likes.

He doesn’t understand why anime is horrible, because as his father said once, _Anime is a blessing to mankind_ , and he thinks that that is very true. His father is a very smart man.

He likes to tell his mother that sometimes, because she’ll scrunch up her nose and frown, and even when she has the Ugh face on, she’s so pretty and he’s proud to be able to call her his mother.

He loves her so much.

x.x.x.x.x

“Mama?”

“Yes, Tsutomu?”

“I love you.”

A laugh. “I love you too.”

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

A sharp inhale, and he tilts his head to see her shocked expression. “What for?”

He thinks about it.

About every time she stood up for him, encouraged him, pushed him further and helped him find his wings. Every time she picked him up and dusted him off, pushing him forward because she could see that he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Every time she sat down with him and let him talk, then gave him the best advice that he needed, not wanted to hear.

He thinks about every time that she’s been by his side, even when all others have fallen away, about every tiny thing that she has done for him without complaint. He thinks about her stepping back to let him find himself, to let him discover what his place in the world is supposed to be, instead of forcing him in a direction that she wants him to go.

He smiles and shrugs.

“Everything.”


End file.
